May, Trump and Brexit

The British gave the PM her marching orders

It’s hard to succeed in government when you are not for your own policy or program. That is Theresa May’s chief problem with Brexit. Ms. May, who was originally not in favor of “Brexit” but for “remain,” became Great Britain’s prime minister due to the winds of fate and the eccentricities of British politics. She was charged with executing a policy she had not supported.

Ms. May’s instinct, and perhaps also her decided strategy, was therefore to proceed at half-speed and with half measures.

So when her plans, long delayed, for a “hard Brexit” came to light a few days ago, they seemed anything but hard, and there was outrage. Her government lost a pair of Cabinet ministers who resigned over what they saw as the prime minister’s very soft approach to actually executing the exit from the European Union.

The departure of Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Minister Boris Johnson over their disappointment with Ms. May’s Brexit plans may be the beginning of the end for Ms. May’s government. Mr. Johnson was an architect of Brexit and a contender to be the first post-Brexit prime minister. Now he may be a contender again.

To some extent, the devil with the British exit from the European Union is bound to be in the details. What rights will British citizens have in European nations? What will the new customs arrangements and borders look like? What will the trade terms be between the EU and the U.K.?

The latter question brought President Donald Trump into the Brexit-May fray. He gave an interview to a British newspaper saying, in effect, that a special trade relationship between the United States and Britain is possible, whereas such a relationship between the U.S. and the EU or a Britain-bound EU is not. Mr. Trump unhelpfully added that Mr. Johnson would make a “great” PM and that Ms. May had not taken his advice on how to handle Brexit.

But Mr. Trump is not Ms. May’s biggest problem right now. Brexit itself is. Brexit cannot be done in half measures or softly. No exit can be partial. By definition, an exit is a completed act.

Brexit is about sovereignty, which is not a vague or amorphous concept. Margaret Thatcher understood that. It’s not clear that Theresa May does. The PM keeps trying to soften something that should be sharp. That cannot work and should not work, because the British people have spoken. She is in political trouble because she has tried to complicate a matter that really is as clear as day.